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KEV67

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Everything posted by KEV67

  1. I thought Jackie Brown had a sort of a twist.
  2. I decided on Pete Wylie from The Mighty Wah. Dangerous choice perhaps, because he was an egomaniac. He had a good voice though. I doubt this will be a very stable band, but if they can get two half decent LPs out of them it would be worth it.
  3. KEV67

    The Amises

    I read The Information by Martin Amis. It was dark, cynical and misanthropic. Have to give him credit for skewering clever people and much as the thick. He is an equal opportunities skewerer. It's a shame he does not have a son who is a writer.
  4. It's still a bore fest. More than half to go before I can say I read it.
  5. I have started reading this. I wonder whether it was the book the Rolling Stones song Sympathy for the Devil was about. Not massively gripped so far.
  6. I read on the internet an interview given by Peter Lorimer. Some of Clough's demands sounded like bullying and rather unreasonable. On the other hand, the Derby County players loved him, even though he sometimes tore strips off them. I have not heard of players writing to the board to reinstate a manager before, or threatening to go on strike. I missed the hey day of Clough. I lived in Long Eaton when I was about six or seven. At school all the kids used to chant "Derby County". That would have been about 1974 so Dave Mackay was probably in charge by then. Most of that went over my head. I hated the daily humiliation of football. I became aware of Brian Clough in the 80s and 90s. I always used to like that side with Franz Car, Neil Web, Des Walker, Garry Parker, Nigel Clough, Stuart Pearce, Roy Keane, etc. Brian Clough's behaviour was odd sometimes. He had a player called Jemson who would not follow tactics. He'd run with the ball rather than pass it. Clough reported punched Jemson in the stomach in the changing room. There was another occasion during a pitch invasion when he clouted a number of the invaders. Old school was Clough.
  7. Shallow Grave had a decent twist.
  8. Blade Runner had a good twist, at least the director's cut did.
  9. Yes the problem with the singer is that they are so distinctive that they dominate the band. First the voice is a very distinctive instrument, and then they sing the words, which if they are good words, is a second dimension to the music. So I would want a singer who had a strong voice, but did not have such a distinctive style he dominated the band. Because then it would be a case of Gary Flash and the Backing Band.
  10. The Jungle Book. I liked the I'm the King of the Jungle song and dance routine. My favourite character would be Luke Skywalker. I read the comics before I saw the film. I read the book so I knew who Jabba the Hut was before the Return of the Jedi, and I knew who Luke's friend Biggs was, who was cut from the film. Biggs didn't make it. He went for a burton while attacking the Death Star.
  11. I have yet to decide on a singer but my other band members are John McGeoch (Siouxie and the Banshees, Magazine ) electric guitar David Norreys (Joy Division, New Order) - drums Brian Jones (Rolling Stones) - instrumentalist David Steele (The Beat, Fine Young Cannibals) - bass The singer is tricky.
  12. Yes, Peter Taylor. In the film he was played by Timothy Spall. Martin Sheen was a lot like Brian Clough, but Timothy Spall did not seem very much like Peter Taylor. I have only watched a couple of clips of Peter Taylor on YouTube. He seemed like a cross between Captain Peacock and Arthur Daley. He had a slight military bearing. Apart from being a great judge of talent, I suspect he was the good cop to Clough's bad cop. Quite a lot is made of Clough not telling Taylor about his pay rises. Fair enough, but while it was a great partnership, it was not an equal partnership. Clough had the tougher job.
  13. I seem to recall hearing Cloughie say the Leeds board should have backed him. Difficult to say. Someone in the books says Johnny Giles was promised the job but didn't get it because Billy Bremner's nose was out out of joint. I wonder how he would have got on. He might have managed their decline a bit better. I think possibly Cloughie was right and the board should have backed him. It is pretty difficult when the fans all hate you too.
  14. Another thing that struck me is just how tough football management is. As a manager you are under massive pressure to get results all the time. The toughest thing is sacking players, telling them they won't play again, trying to sell them on or move them out. Maybe it is tougher with players who you like and have served you well than players you personally dislike. Cloughie has a heck of a task with that Leeds team. I doubt any manager could have done it. The team needed rebuilding.
  15. I think this book is a bit like In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, which he described as a non-fiction novel. Maybe it is a bit like The Crown series, which I have not watched. Quite a lot of The Crown must be conjecture, because most of those conversations were private and not recorded. They were possibly jizzed up a bit. Most novels are a mix of fact and fantasy. Novels may be based on real events and modelled on real people. Some books and plays about real historical people are almost complete myth. However, with books like In Cold Blood and The Damned United, readers might be tempted to believe it is all true. In the Damned United, there are a lot of stats and facts, and I expect most of them are true. But some important facts might not be. Certainly the thoughts going through Brian Clough's mind cannot be stated as fact. His relationship with Peter Walker might have been somewhat different. In the film there was a clip from a local TV programme where the presenter surprises Brian Clough by bringing on Don Revie. This was just after Brian Clough was sacked as Leeds Manager. The Damned United film version and the local TV sports programme version were similar to start with, but then the film version was dramatically enhanced towards the end. This is the sort of thing that is a bit controversial. I suppose it is the start
  16. I think this book is a bit like In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, which he described as a non-fiction novel. Maybe it is a bit like The Crown series, which I have not watched. Quite a lot of The Crown must be conjecture, because most of those conversations were private and not recorded. They were possibly jizzed up a bit. Most novels are a mix of fact and fantasy. Novels may be based on real events and modelled on real people. Some books and plays about real historical people are almost complete myth. However, with books like In Cold Blood and The Damned United, readers might be tempted to believe it is all true. In the Damned United, there are a lot of stats and facts, and I expect most of them are true. But some important facts might not be. Certainly the thoughts going through Brian Clough's mind cannot be stated as fact. His relationship with Peter Walker might have been somewhat different. In the film there was a clip from a local TV programme where the presenter surprises Brian Clough by bringing on Don Revie. This was just after Brian Clough was sacked as Leeds Manager. The Damned United film version and the local TV sports programme version were similar to start with, but then the film version was dramatically enhanced towards the end. This is the sort of thing that is a bit controversial. I suppose this is how myths have always been made.
  17. I am reading this. I saw the film with Michael Sheen and Timothy Spall. I think I enjoyed the film more than I am enjoying the book. It is a remarkable book, nevertheless. I am not sure how this book should be categorised, because it is based on real people and events, but it is somewhat fictionalised. I know Brian Clough's son Nigel hated it, and did not think it was a fair reflection of his father. David Peace could not really describe what was going through Brian Clough's mind.
  18. Charles Dickens was lower middle class, bordering on working class. I suspect that was why he was better at lower middle class and working class characters. Anthony Trollope was upper middle class. I think that may be why he is better at upper middle class characters and gentry. Trollope is at home in town and country. The Last Chronicle of Barset is more cosmopolitan than the other Barset books. Much more of it occurs in London. This is my favourite book out of the series.
  19. This is the sort of news I like to hear.
  20. My problem with the cheque is resolved. Whoever signed it must have made it payable to cash. Then the cheque could be handed on like money. Still seems like a rum way of going about things to me. I have never paid a cheque to cash. In one part of the book, one of the protagonists travels to Italy in search of another character. I was very surprised he could get from England to Italy in little over a day. Railways must have been built all over large parts of Europe by then. I was also surprised the ease with which this protagonist found this other character. He arrives in a foreign city, asks around, and is told where she is. I suppose it was customary for people to leave their contact details. But say you are in a city like Turin. There must be lots of hotels in Turin. How do you know which one to go to? The book was first published in 1867.
  21. Finished it. Quite a good ending. Nobody is very nice in Martin Amis's books. I don't know who was more unlikeable: the protagonist or his more successful rival.
  22. I have been reading this. I almost gave up after the first chapter, but it got better after that. This is the fourth of Martin Amis' books I have read. It exemplifies his trademark black humour and his dyspeptic view of British society. I doubt Martin Amis would think much of that last sentence, but I don't care. The book is about an author who writes very literary books which nobody wants to read. He becomes upset because his old friend from university starts writing bestsellers, which he thinks are rubbish. It is not the best of his books imho. I thought London Fields was a better book, and I thought Lionel Asbo was hilarious, but that is a minority view.
  23. I wonder if the Last Chronicle of Barset is the best of the series. I still have over 30 chapters to read. I still do not understand the issue of the cheque. Perhaps it was not so much a cheque as a postal order. However I will resist googling it in case the plot is spolit.
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